Joining in on the Stash Less Challenge

Last year, I set an intention to drastically reduce my fabric stash. I haven’t talked a lot about my progress – all of the projects using stash fabric have been tagged rather quietly – but I’m actually very pleased with my progress. So far I used 11 fabrics from the photo in my inital post plus all of my knits. Then I donated a few fabrics to a sewing group in a local accommodation for refugees. I also made an effort to be very mindful about my purchases and to use up any newly bought fabric right away.

However, my stash is still too big, so the intention remains (and don’t let that picture fool you – that is not all of it). Plus, ever since I realized that “destashing” is a term mostly used for selling or donating your stash rather than using it up, I wanted to rename the whole thing. As luck would have it, Felicia of The Craft Sessions recently started a great community challenge called “Stash Less” – a series of posts, all geared towards keeping a mindful stash. Plus, every month there is a small extra challenge to participate in. What can I say? Of course I’m in!

Stash Less, Challenge #2: Making a plan

This month’s challenge is all about making a plan and setting some ground rules. Here we go:

My aims

My long-term goal is to have a very very small stash. I want it to only contain inspiring fabrics that are 100% my style and taste. The kind that you love so much you can’t wait to sew them up. I don’t want the size of my stash to be overwhelming and take up too much shelf space, so 10 fabrics or less would be ideal. I know that sounds pretty radical, but it’s the number I feel most comfortable with.

My purchasing ground rules

Talk about radical: I want to purchase as little as possible this year. The only exceptions are:
a) If I need something to complete a recent project that I can’t find in my stash or
b) If it’s for a garment I’m in urgent need of and that will be sewn up right away (come summer, I’ll definitely need a few tops and pairs of shorts).

My budget

As a student, my overall budget isn’t very high anyway, so I’m not sure if this step is necessary. But I’ll loosely set this to €20 per month and see where it goes. After all, tracking my expenses for fabric, yarn and patterns is not the worst idea, even if it kinda scares me :D

Now, this might all sound super serious, like I’m putting myself on a bread-and-water kind of diet, but the size of my stash is really starting to bug me lately. At the same time, I have some super cool fabrics in there and so many ideas for projects that I can’t wait to start. So the challenge feels more like an opportunity rather than a restriction: I’m making a ton of beautiful things for little to no money and I’m reducing shelf space.

Have you heard of the Stash Less Challenge yet? Or are you even joining in?
In case you’re curious, here are all the links from Felicia’s blog: